Preallocating bitcoin addresses

[pixelglow]

Is there any way to preallocate bitcoin addresses? What I mean is, we want to send money to someone who either doesn't have a bitcoin wallet or you don't know the addresses of. Then can you send to some arbitrary address, email them the address and then they can pick up the money? After all, if a bitcoin address is just a public key, surely you can generate the private key and somehow mail to that someone and have him put in his wallet.

The reason I ask this is because this is how PayPal took off in a big way. I remember when PayPal first started they got employees to email $10 to their friends, who then had to get a PayPal account to cash out. This helped a lot of people sign up with PayPal, bootstrapping the whole PayPal economy.

Better still with Bitcoin, if we can configure the executable to contain that particular public key/private key already, e.g. the client download HTTP address has a parameter that configures it with the bitcoin address. Then the email can contain a link to the client which allows them to retreive the monies directly.

Cheers,
G.

P.S. Apologies if someone has thought of this before.

[1713564776]

1713564776

[1713564776]

1713564776

[1713564776]

1713564776

[1713564776]

1713564776

[swinewine]

Although not exactly what you are talking about you can do something similar with Youtipit (and Facebook). You can tip a persons Facebook account some bitcoins and they can claim them by signing up to Youtipit with the same Facebook account.
See this blog post:
http://enabledidler.blogspot.com/2011/05/escrow-tipits-tip-any-facebook-user.html

(Yes I am involved with Youtipit so I am self promoting but I still think its a cool feature that could really spread bitcoins to a wider audiance)

[Garrett Burgwardt]

Alternatively, you can generate the keypair and send the private key to them so they can import it.

Though, it seemed like you were suggesting finding the private key based on the public key. You can't do that, or bitcoin wouldn't work.

-Garrett

[kwukduck]

Problem is, you can't just make up bitcoins to give away to get people started, like paypal did... They just hand you a virtual made up credit that represents 10 USD, the actual 10 USD doesn't exist.
We can't just make up bitcoins, it would have to be done by somebody with huge amounts of bitcoins who's willing to give them away for free.

[mineority]

You could put the coins in a wallet from https://www.instawallet.org/ (no registration) and simply send your friend the link. He can then later transfer the coins to his real Bitcoin wallet when he openend one.

[pixelglow]

The idea is to make it as seamless as possible, email your friend, your friend clicks the link, bam! the money is in their account. Better still if there is no need for a client install.

The closest seems to be Youtipit (swinewine, I did have a look at your website) with the Facebook linkage, but how do you get the bitcoins to them? Are they virtually in the Youtipit account?

The other possibility is instawallet (mineority, I also did have a look at your website). Perhaps you can make a button on your website where a single click: (1) creates a new wallet, (2) populates it with some of your bitcoins, and (3) sends your friend an email with the link and a personal message. If the user needs to go to his bitcoin client to fund it, then perhaps the button (1) goes to a page where you can compose the email, (2) creates the empty wallet, (3) queues the wallet ready to go out when it is funded. Then when the user funds it, your process automatically sends out the email. Maybe the email can include a link to the trade directory, besides allowing the composition of a personal message.

kwukduck -- individuals will have to fund it, in the spirit of P2P. As a miner (or investor) sitting on a stash of BTC, it might be worthwhile to donate some to friends to stimulate the economy. After all as a miner you didn't actually buy your BTC, and giving it away might cause the BTC to go up in value.

Cheers, G.

[swinewine]

Pixelglow,

You need to be a youtipit member to create an "Escrow Tipit". When creating the tipit you give the facebook url of the person you want to tip and tip them some BTC. Once created only owner of the Facebook account you gave during the creation process can claim ownership of the Tipit. The the receiving person immediately gets ownership of the tipt/tip once he signs up to youtipit using his Facebook account. Anybody can tip this tipit (either though youtipit tipping or directly from their bitcoin client).

Example: So say you see some great band on the internet and you want to give them some BTC. Find out their Facebook profile url, give them a tip and tell them about it. 

Thats the idea. Questions/Comment?